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Maybe if I’d chosen your life, left home, and become a part of the legacy our father had left behind, I’d have found acceptance. I could have been me. Not the version I pretended. Not the guy everyone thought I was. But again, I was weak. I wasn’t fearless. I wasn’t you. I had demons no one could ever see.
Understand that choosing to take my life wasn’t an easy one.
Horror gripped me, and my eyes shot up to lock with Huck’s. My vision blurred as I looked at him. Emotion clogged my throat. Had I just read that wrong?
“What?” I whispered.
Something wasn’t right. Hayes had died of a brain aneurysm. Not suicide. Hayes wouldn’t have done that.
“Finish,” he replied softly.
I could see the agony in his expression. This was real. I placed a hand on my chest as the pain seared through me.
It was a selfish one. I didn’t want to face the truth. I’d chosen to be a minister because it had seemed safe. Surely, if I served God and taught the scripture, he’d fix me. Right?
Wrong.
It hadn’t worked. No amount of reading the scripture, praying, serving the church fixed me. I never changed. I pretended. I was so good at it, but every day, I died a little more inside.
I’m gay.
I’ve known it since I was about ten years old. Maybe earlier. At first, I thought it was because girls made me nervous, but the older I got, I knew that wasn’t the case at all. I dated girls, but even kissing them was difficult for me.
I met Mark my first year in college. With him, I could be myself. I might have been happy, but my need to please our grandparents kept me from being honest not only with myself, but with everyone else too. Because of my refusal to be who I was, I lost Mark. He gave me an ultimatum, and I didn’t choose him. I chose the church. The lies. The world I had built for myself. The facade.
Anyway, I struggled for a while alone, but then a woman walked into my life who needed saving too. She had her own set of demons. The first time I saw her in the congregation, she was detached. The brokenness in her gaze was one I recognized. I felt what she so openly let others see. Needing someone who didn’t have it all figured out. She was as lost as I was, so I befriended her. That would be another one of my sins.
Trinity Bennett wasn’t broken. She was hurt in ways that went deep. Her need to be loved, to feel wanted, and for affection tugged at my heart. For a moment, I thought I could save her, and in doing so, it would make my life okay. I realized soon though that she wasn’t weak. Not like me. She didn’t pretend. She accepted her life and didn’t try to be someone she wasn’t.
As I’m sure you’ll hear, if you haven’t by now, I proposed to her, and she said yes. I knew she wasn’t in love with me, but like me, she wanted something she couldn’t have so badly—to be wanted and accepted. I thought for a moment that I could give us that. But the more she pressed to get closer to me, the more I put up a wall. Hurting her was the last thing I wanted to do, and the thought of leaving her alone again was the one thing that made me question if I should go through with this. But again, I was selfish.
I know you can find her. Do it for me. I shouldn’t get to ask you anything, and I know that, but please watch over her. She’s got darkness that is even more powerful than mine. She needs what I couldn’t give her. She needs to be cherished. She needs a safe place where she belongs. She needs a man to love her. That man wasn’t me, and I’m not asking you to be that man. I know you’re not cut out for that. She just needs protecting, and you can protect her better than anyone I know.
I’m sorry for a lot of things. Not coming around to see you more. Not telling you the truth, for leaving without saying goodbye. But in this life, I had the best brother a guy could ask for. I was always proud of how tough you were. How you chose who you wanted to be and didn’t ask anyone’s opinion. Just please try to understand.
This is all I know to do. This is my freedom.
I love you.
Live this life for both of us.
Hayes
“Oh God,” I whispered.
Disbelief gripped me. The words I had just read were written in Hayes’s handwriting. It was so familiar to me that I had even heard his voice in my head as I read it. I could feel his personality within the words. But so much confused me.
Where had this letter come from? Why had everyone been told his death was a brain aneurysm? How had I not realized this? I’d been close to Hayes. I should have seen it. Should have known he was struggling. He had needed someone, and I could have helped him.
Huck stood with his eyes closed as he hung his head. “I wasn’t around. I didn’t check on him enough. I didn’t make time to get close to him. If I’d just put aside my disdain for our mother’s parents and taken time for my brother, I would have seen it. I could have been there. I could have stopped him.”
The agony in Huck’s voice gripped me. He was blaming himself.
“But I did see him every day. For six months, we were together, and I missed it. He was hurting, and I … I was so consumed with my mistakes, the shadows from my past, that I didn’t see he needed someone,” I said to him, standing up. “If you are blaming yourself, stop. I was there, Huck, and I let him down. Not you.”
He shook his head as he lifted his eyes to meet mine. “He was my baby brother. When our parents died, I swore I would protect him. I went to live with those people because he needed me. It was my job, my responsibility, and I failed.”
Taking a step toward him, I reached out my hand and placed it on his arm. “Did you read the words in this letter? He wasn’t blaming you. This is why he wrote it. So you would know why. Not so you could put this on yourself.”
